


I'll Be Your Shelter

by RetroactiveCon



Series: Praying That It'll Be You [6]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: “You shouldn’t have to settle for sleeping under a lab bench.”“I won’t owe the lab bench anything if I fail!” Hartley spits the words as though they’re poison. Barry won’t stop until he hears them, so there’s no point avoiding them. “I’ve been thrown out of every place I’ve ever called home because I wasn’t good enough! I’m not going to give you the opportunity to boast that you, too, put Central City’s famous gay failure back on the streets.”
Series: Praying That It'll Be You [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562548
Comments: 12
Kudos: 121





	1. Chapter 1

Hartley lingers in the doorway. Barry, who’s already shed his coat and shoes, turns back in confusion. When he sees Hartley clutching the doorframe, unwilling to set foot on the threadbare rug, he darts back to his side. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Never mind.” It’s a dismissal of the situation as a whole rather than Barry’s question. Hartley takes half a step back. “I’ll go back to STAR Labs. I ought to refine my gauntlets, and there’s the small matter of equipping the facility with cameras that can see speedsters’ lightning, if not their actions…”

Barry lays a hand over his. The tenderness of the touch, to say nothing of the warmth of his skin, scatters Hartley’s worried thoughts. “You’re ashamed.” 

“Of course not. I’m being practical. The gauntlets first, because I’ve already got them. The cameras next, because Thawne may be dead but I’m sure there are other speedsters…”

“I don’t understand why you’re ashamed.” Barry tilts his head, trying to meet Hartley’s eyes. It’s an indication of concern, given how seldom and fleetingly Barry makes eye contact. “I invited you here.”

“I don’t need your _charity!”_ Hartley spits. Barry recoils, and Hartley feels like the lowest kind of vermin. “I didn’t ask you for this, and I don’t want to owe you for something that I did to myself!” 

Barry lays a hand on his shoulder and draws him into the apartment. Reluctantly, he lets himself be pulled. If they’re having this discussion, he doesn’t want to do it in the hallway for the neighbors to hear. “What do you mean, ‘did to yourself’?”

“I mean, after I—” He bites his tongue. He hasn’t told Barry about his time in Thawne’s hidden room under the accelerator; given the choice, he never will. “After my dismissal from STAR Labs, I was well enough off to have maintained a comfortable place to live.” STAR Labs paid well, and he’d had more than enough saved up to get by. “I elected not to and spent the vast majority of my savings on my hearing aids and those _stupid_ gauntlets.” 

Barry gapes at him. He adds defensively, “It’s cutting-edge sonic technology. You expect it to be cheap?” 

“Why would you do that?” Barry seems flummoxed. Hartley takes half a step back, hoping to make good his escape now that this unpleasant discussion is drawing to a close. 

“I lived on the streets for my final year of college—I knew safe places to go.” After the particle accelerator explosion, a gaggle of less-than-savory metahumans had taken up residence in the abandoned apartment building Hartley called home. He’d made the acquaintance of, among others, Leonard Snart, Mark Mardon, and Kyle Nimbus. In return for his silence and occasional help with tech problems, they’d let him do as he pleased. “Getting revenge on Wells—Thawne—was my sole focus. Surely you can relate?” 

Barry can, and they both know it. Hartley watched him run himself ragged in the weeks between Thawne’s unmasking and his death. That wasn’t the impartial work of a hero saving his city; it was the single-minded dedication of a man bent on vengeance. “And now?”

“I’ve slept in STAR Labs before.” Indeed he had; his first year of employment, he’d prioritized paying off his student loans. Anything left over he’d put in reserve in case Wells—Thawne—grew dissatisfied with his work and terminated him. Only after the first year had passed did he feel secure enough to rent an apartment. “It’s adequate, and it allows me to keep what I have left for food.” 

Barry can no doubt understand what Hartley refuses to say: he’s loath to spend a penny in case some new disaster befalls him and he finds himself back on the streets. Sleeping in STAR Labs is a luxury compared to some of the places he’s stayed. He doesn’t understand Barry’s horror. “You shouldn’t have to settle for sleeping under a lab bench.”

“I won’t owe the lab bench anything if I fail!” Hartley spits the words as though they’re poison. Barry won’t stop until he hears them, so there’s no point avoiding them. “I’ve been thrown out of every place I’ve ever called home because _I wasn’t good enough!_ I’m not going to give you the opportunity to boast that you, too, put Central City’s famous gay failure back on the streets.” 

Barry sucks in a sharp, wounded breath. Hartley skitters back, reaching blindly for the doorknob. 

“I don’t want your pity,” he says. “I never did.” 

“It isn’t pity.” Barry sounds on the verge of tears. The hurt in his voice stops Hartley’s retreat. Sweet naïf, he sounds genuinely devastated by Hartley’s outburst. “I just…I’ve always had a home, with my parents and then with Joe, and it breaks my heart that not only have you not had that, you really don’t believe you can.” 

Hartley scoffs. Again he’s forced to see the difference between them: Barry Allen, unwilling center of Eobard Thawne’s world, beloved of all who know him, and himself, a brilliant mistake fit only to be used for his questionable intellect. “Is that what you’re trying to offer me, Barry? A home?”

Barry nods, his eyes wide with the same guileless hope that made Hartley trust him in the first place. “I just don’t want you to be alone. I thought by now, maybe you’d trust me enough to be okay with it.”

To the dismay of every iota of self-preservation he possesses, Hartley does trust him. Over the last month or so, as they’ve slowly helped each other through their faux-Wells-related traumas, he’s even come to feel affection for him. (Love is too strong a word to describe the shaky, uncertain feeling blossoming between them.) Rather than admit that, he says, “If we do this, I’ll pay rent and grocery money.”

Barry tilts his head. “Is this gonna…you know…make things weird between us? Because I’ve only ever seen you like this when Thawne was—”

Hartley shrugs off his concern. “No. And…I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you.” He needs to find a better defense mechanism than anger; Barry is sensitive enough to take it personally. 

“You were upset.” The brush of Barry’s fingertips over his hand is light enough that he feels next to nothing. He splays his fingers, an invitation Barry gladly takes. Once their fingers are intertwined, Barry brings them to his lips. “But—you’re staying?” 

Against his better judgment, Hartley nods. “Yes, Barry, I’ll stay.”


	2. Chapter 2

Hartley lasts approximately a week into his new roommate arrangement with Barry before he succumbs to begging and piteous puppy eyes. “All right, I will join you in bed.” 

Barry runs a victory lap of the apartment. He’s so adorable that Hartley almost doesn’t begrudge him his blatant gloating. (Almost.) 

That night, he finds himself snugged in bed beside the human equivalent of a radiator. Barry strips down to his boxers before realizing, “Uh, this won’t be awkward, will it? I just…get really hot in the night.”

Hartley raises his eyebrows. The last thing he’s going to do when faced with a nearly-naked Barry Allen is complain. “I don’t mind.” 

Five minutes later, he understands why Barry can’t stand to be clothed. Curling alongside him is akin to lying under direct sunlight: pleasant at first, but gradually stifling. He has to roll to the far edge of the bed to cool down. Only then, outside the range of Barry’s radiant warmth, is he able to fall asleep. 

He wakes for two reasons. The first is the insistent press of superheated speedster against his side. The second is a sleepy-slow muttering mere inches from his ear. “But it doesn’t matter what the elephants say.”

Hartley opens one eye. Without his glasses, he can only just make out the lines of Barry’s face. (He’s beautiful bathed in moonlight, his pale skin glowing and his dark hair shining silver. Hartley wishes he could see him better, but he’s too thoroughly trapped by a warm, heavy arm to grab his glasses.) By all appearances, however blurred they may be, he seems perfectly at peace. 

“Joe, I don’t wanna, the elephants can’t catch me.” 

“Barry.” He can’t quite reach to kiss his brow. “There are no elephants here. You’re dreaming.”

“I don’t wanna jump!” 

Hartley manages to turn onto his side. He drapes one arm over Barry’s narrow waist; the other hand he brings up to trace around Barry’s sleeping face. “You don’t have to jump,” he promises. In the morning, he would like to hear about this dream. “There are no elephants, sweet boy.”

Barry gives a snuffly snort and a whole-body shiver. Hartley is about to reassure him once again about the lack of elephants when his muttering dies away into deep, peaceful breaths. 

“I didn’t take you for a sleep-talker.” Hartley presses a kiss to Barry’s brow. There’s no escaping him—he’s too cuddly, even when he sleeps—so he might as well get comfortable. “Since you are, I hope your dreams are pleasant.” 

He isn’t woken again, so he infers that they are.


End file.
